Dwarf-holder

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A poor farmer with a very small holding, especially one smaller than required for subsistence.

    "It represented the rural middle classes against the bigger men, especially against their creditors, but it neither represented nor cared for the dwarf-holders, still less the agricultural labourers."

Example

More examples

"It represented the rural middle classes against the bigger men, especially against their creditors, but it neither represented nor cared for the dwarf-holders, still less the agricultural labourers."

Etymology

From dwarf + holder, by analogy with smallholder. First attested in the 1930s.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.